A House Divided
by Chief Chilly
Summary: An attempt to expand on the details left out by Lord Death concerning the Grim Times, from the creation of the Demon Weapons to the DWMA's creation told through flashbacks and anecdotes. Features Eibon, King Arthur, the one and only Excalibur and more!
1. Author's Note

Okay, I think it only fair to warn those of you reading this that I have taken loose definitions of the 8 Powerful Warriors/Great Old Ones and run with them. Most of them I pulled right out of my posterior. But some of the events I detail are based on those within canon, so no flames over that please.

I decided to write this as a way of starting a long saga-type story, in preparation for my own works. The idea was also to put down my own views on the past and exactly what happened to cause the current state of affairs within Soul Eater.

There are eight meisters and eight weapons. Lord Death, Eibon, and Asura are canonical meisters, with Excalibur and Vajra as the only known weapons. For those wondering about the Black Mass, that fellow will be along as well towards the end.

Detailed below is a list of the meister and weapon pairs I have decided to use.

Meisters:

Lord Death, the Grim Reaper

Eibon, the Archmage

Merlin, the Dragonlord

King Arthur, the Holy Warrior

Loki, the God of Mischief

Gilgamesh, the Greatest Warrior

Tenochtitlan, the Stone Colossus

Asura, the Champion of the World

Weapons:

Mortem, the Deathscythe

Mimir, the Great Sage

Emrys, the Pendragon Blade

Excalibur, the Holy Sword

Laevateinn, the Cimmerian Blade

Enkidu, the Gemini

Quetzalcoatl, the Divine Serpent Spear

Bashura, the High Priestess [Vajra]

I have to take some time to write at least some of the chapters, and that will take time. I hope to have published the real story by February 12th 2012.


	2. Shards of the Cycle

Well, I thought I'd give you a little prologue. I won't tell you who it is talking here, but there are multiple hints. Anyone who figures it out will be commended.

* * *

><p><em>I drift in, I drift out. For the last 800 years, my mind has been like a restless tide, ever shifting, ever drifting, moving up and down a sea of consciousness without stop, without rest, without reaching any port of any kind. The clear light, once so well known to me, has disappeared. It's a secret that now only the eternal people can tell. <em>

_I don't know how long it is since we travelled here in search of peace. Even as we sleep, we are awake. It is no longer clear when the dream ends and reality sets in. With the world travelling just fine without us, I feel content to have it as it is. We have seen much, known much, but disturbed little of this world's history. Such are the actions of the wise former gods. _

_On the rock where I forged my Demon Weapon, though this was accidental, there now resides an old ash tree. Deep within its bark and its fibres, the tree houses the legacy of two ancient forces, one white and one red, caught in eternal conflict. I think the true tragedy lies not with either side but the pettiness of their fight. One side is as good as another. _

_They say life is what you make it. If that's true, than the irony of those who claim to fight evil is that they themselves are creating that evil, despite their aim to destroy it. To say nothing of the so-called gods who consider themselves to be magnanimous and the one true righteous. The Kishin's birth is our fault as much as it is his. _

_My memory calls to me of a time before the birth of the Kishin. A land of myth and a time of magic. An image of me with my comrades around me, my weapon in hand and our four souls resonating in unison as intimate as lethal. The idea of defeat seems a distant and impossible thing. United and strong. Now fighting the Witches, Now fighting the monsters, now fighting each other. How did it come to be that three friends, once staunch and true comrades, then fought each other as sworn enemies? How did master and pupil betray each other in equal measure with such reckless abandon? _

_I am left to ask these questions and receive no answers. As I gaze into the void, I think on my past mistakes. I was once the same person I criticised. I once believed in the immutable word of a superior power. I once allowed my life to be dictated by kings and lords. Never once did it occur to me to go against that idea. By the time I chose to take my life into my own hands, it was already too late. So we became hermits who judged the new generations of men. It was the only thing to be done. In many ways it was a release from the ghastly life of convincing myself my partner and I were any better than the enemies we were fighting._

* * *

><p><em>I cannot sleep. I cannot think. Only gaze around the water that I cannot drink. This is no way to spend my life. We pulled a foolhardy move. There was no cure. They couldn't do anything for it. I know he said it would be temporary, but if I'd been less trusting we could've avoided this altogether. It's hard not to trust the one who gave you life, though. <em>

_That doesn't mean I'm happy to stay here, in the dark and marshy depths of isolation. The sensation is chilling. No privacy, no waking, no-thing to do. The darkness is so thick you could cut it with a knife. I can't even tell if my eyes are open or not. There's nothing but an emptiness otherwise known as space. I sometimes think I'm falling, but that can't be true, as I don't feel the air rush up to meet me. _

_Words and voices come spiralling at me from beyond the void. "You cannot surpass me, Uther!"I don't trust a weapon that declares himself a general rebel. "I remember the old warriors and weapons who ruled the world. Eight Meisters for Eight Weapons, 16 comrades. Once a great force ruling the world with truth and grace, we are now divided, dead or on the far side of the spectrum of evil. To think we once were gods among men! Yet knowing the futility of peace and prosperity, I doubt if we could have gone any which way but down. _

_I don't remember the name of the one who gave me life and wielded me as a weapon. I have long forgotten the names of our old friends. In fact my own name is a complete mystery. I simply remember our tradition as the Great Old Ones by the possession or pursuit with which we drove men to Madness. The Warriors are Order, Wisdom, Power, Doubt, Ambition, Glory, Pride and Fear, the Weapons Bloodlust, Discovery, Confusion, Rage, Hunger, Lust, Greed and Indecision. Our soul wavelengths are lethal to those who do not possess strong souls. But lately I've been wondering if I still have a soul. It's eating away at me, the very idea that I lost myself to the Madness to which I was supposed to be immune. _

_And what of the dragons? Where are they? Since my creator and I came here in search of rest, what has become of them? They were once loud and noisy, and oh, did they ever go on fighting. In the end their reason for argument came down to "is red better or white?" Once they could be resonated with to access certain abilities. Now I can't hear their souls. They've all but vanished from this world, and now I can't tell where they've gone or what they're doing. How can it be that the two beings who have been a part of my life for over 40 years, are now far and beyond my reach? _

_When the time comes, I will go to him. I will ask my creator and subsequent Meister if I have a soul. I will ask him where the dragons have gone. I will seek the truth. Everyone has to start somewhere. _


	3. Learning the Truth in 6 Easy Steps

**Okay. This was a hell of a long shot. I'm surprised I even managed to upload one of these new documents. **

**Well, I don't think I need to explain to you what's going on for the first chapter. **

**There's a lot to go through, and I intend to give this long saga a parallel story of what has happened since as well as before. **

**It'll be a long and arduous procedure, but I think I can do it. **

* * *

><p>Maka shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't like her to do so, but she couldn't help it, considering.<p>

A few years before this, she had discovered she was pregnant. Soul had agreed to marry her, though it was no surprise that he found it difficult to adjust. With Soul, there was no real meaning to the words "acting like a mature adult". Much like Black Star, he had not grown up gracefully, or with discretion. Between continuing to describe things as "cool" or "uncool" despite being 25 and trying to spend as much time as he could goofing off, the man could do with some seriousness. She had found herself using the Maka Chop on him almost three times every five minutes.

To say nothing of the constant nose bleeds he _still _incurred from a certain cat. She felt terrible for thinking it, but it had been a relief when Blair had moved in with her father.

However, while she had managed to throw her father off the scent for a while, she was still trying to take care of her child and Spirit was getting suspicious. Even though Lord Death had agreed not to tell him in case he became overemotional, he'd paid her a visit recently to bring her a gift from her mother and his grandson's scratch marks on the furniture had not gone unnoticed. She was a terrible liar and she could tell Spirit had not bought her excuse that Soul had done it by accident during a fight with a burglar.

She might have been more convincing if Spirit hadn't known about Soul becoming a Death Scythe, and if he didn't know all about being a Death Scythe himself, but the house didn't even look like it had recently be burgled. The scratch marks were exclusive to this piece of furniture alone, whereas a burgled house would have scratch marks all over the place. To say nothing of the size of them – it looked like a baby shark had been teething there.

And that was the other thing. Soul was a Death Scythe since the age of 18, but his mental state was still that of his 15 year old. Sometimes it was all she could do to stop him acting like a complete idiot. Yes he could act mature and yes he was a good father but she could not overlook the pranks he had encouraged their son to enact.

Normally she would've asked Tsubaki for advice on the matter, but she was not exactly available. Black Star and she taught at the Academy now and they were often sent on investigation missions to various far-flung corners of the world by Kid, who was now the headmaster of the school following Lord Death's retirement. While this had not prevented her contact with Tsubaki, it had made it impractical to have long conversations with her. Besides, a lot had happened in the last eight years.

There was nothing else for it, she had decided. She would just have to tell Spirit about her son.

"Uh, Maka?"

She broke out of her trance suddenly. Her father was looking at her with concern.

"Oh! Sorry papa, I got lost in thought for a minute there," she cringed.

It was only now that she noticed how time had been treating him. He had kept his old suit and cross shaped tie, but his once shock red hair was a lighter shade of crimson and there was not as much hair as he used to have. There were some wrinkles around his brow, but other than that he seemed to be treating himself well.

"Well," he said, "Aren't you going to let me in?"

She snapped out of it again, trying to remind herself that it was rude to daydream when she was talking to people. "Okay, come in."

They sat down at the table, a wedding gift from Kid, Liz and Patti. The scratch marks on the chest of drawers were still very much there.

"So," Spirit smirked. "In your letter you said there was something we had to talk about."

"Yeah, I did."

"So what was it?"

Maka wondered if she could divert him off the road.

"I need some money for my drawers. The scratch marks need repair."

"You called me down to your house to talk finance?" Spirit looked at her with a frown.

"Well, that wasn't quite what I had in mind." Maka's stomach clenched nervously.

"Well what do you need me for?" But even as he looked at the marks, Spirit was beginning to see the shape and manner of the marks. They hardly looked like scythe marks. In fact they looked like they'd been made with a sickle. But Maka and Soul didn't have a sickle. "So what made them, then?" he asked, turning around and resting his head on one fist.

"Soul made them when fighting off a burglar! I already told you that!" Maka insisted, hoping Spirit didn't catch the nervous tone in her voice.

Her father raised an eyebrow. "Maka, you're a bad liar."

His daughter flopped her head on the the table.

"Not that that's a bother or anything, but I wish you'd be more honest with me." He paused for a minute. "Besides, they don't even look like Soul _could've_ made those marks. They look more like they were made by a sickle blade. So, who made them?"

Maka didn't look at her father with much confidence. She looked more sheepish than, well, a sheep.

"Well, that's the reason you're around, papa."

Spirit's ears pricked up. "What is it?"

Maka fidgeted for a minute before she finally told him. "Well, a little while after me and Soul got married, I found that I was... pregnant."

Spirit's face shifted into one that resembled a Halloween mask. Then his face attacked the table, while short and shallow sobs shook his body.

"Uh, papa? Are you okay?" Maka asked uneasily.

Spirit just managed to look up, his eyes red from the salt. "Why didn't you tell me about this Maka? I mean, secrets are one thing, but a child? That's worse than secrets!"

Maka bit her lip. How was she supposed to explain to her father that she thought he would be a bad influence on their kid?

"Well, and please don't take this the wrong way, but we kind of thought you'd be a bad influence on him." 'Nice going little Miss Tact.'

Then at that very minute the door leading to the landing opened and a young child wandered into the kitchen. He gazed over at Spirit with a curious expression.

* * *

><p>Death the Kid. Meister. Grim Reaper. Shinigami. Headmaster of the DWMA. Man. Lover.<p>

These were all the words which defined what he was.

But Kid had never been the straightforward kind of person some people thought him to be.

Presently he was on a mission to West Asia, and he was handling it in the way he always handled it:

By getting all strung up over the apparent lack of symmetry.

"It's disgusting! It's disgusting!" he whined, while banging the ground repeatedly.

"Kid! There's a giant monster heading our way and if we don't stop it, we'll be dead!" screamed Liz, while running around and waving her arms frantically.

Patti just rolled around laughing at the ludicrous nature of it all.

Suddenly Kid stood tall and serious. The Lines of Sanzu on his head connected, and his hands reached out automatically for his weapons.

No sooner had Liz and Patti landed in the hands of their partner in life and love than they underwent a transformation.

Thanks to Soul Resonance, they had become more than mere pistols. Their bodies had morphed into a pair of Thompson Submachine Guns, complete with cartages.

Needless to say, this went well for Kid.

* * *

><p>"Ox! Harvar! Kim! Jacqueline! Kilik! Pots!"<p>

The voice sounded slightly hoarse as the body followed it down the hall toward the ragtag group.

"Sid, why are you in such a state? Is something wrong?" Ox asked with a concerned expression.

"Listen, I kind of need you to take over a mission in Bermuda. I was investigating the Triangle but something unbelievable happened. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

And he was off.

"What was that about?" muttered Kilik.

"Wonder why he was in such a state," nodded Harvar.

"And what mission would be so bad that a 3-star meister couldn't handle it?" pondered Ox.

"At any rate, I suppose we'd better go to Bermuda to complete the mission," declared Kim, always the sensible one of the group.

"I agree," Jacqueline chimed in. "Sid probably just needs some time to rest anyway."

Having thus reached this agreement, they decided to travel to Bermuda. After packing for a few days, the team set out.

Docking on the North side of the island, they travelled to the South, where the triangle began.

There were three two seater rowing boats in the water just outside the Triangle. Ox and Harvar climbed into one, Kim and Jacqueline climbed into another and Kilik and the Pots, who were still quite young, shared a seat in the same boat as Kilik.

They set out into the triangle. But as they did, a storm began to brew.

"Wassat?" Kilik gasped, looking around in shock.

"Never mind that, I think we're going under here!" Ox shouted, and indeed they were.

The boats weren't leaking. There were no weights on either side.

And as they all sank into the Bermuda Triangle, Ox prayed he would not die so young that he never got to experience life as an adult.

Kilik was the first to regain consciousness. He found himself and the others in a desert setting with a grinning face looking down on him from underneath a ferocious hat.

* * *

><p>Ragnarok was sick. Sick as a parrot. There was simply other way to describe his mood.<p>

He was, as he was formerly wont to do, leaning over, albeit on his knees and with one arm around his meister for support. Crona, normally quite upright, was leaning over the toilet in their room in a similar position.

His head was spinning, he felt queasy and with Crona's every hurl a little ogre in his stomach started dancing a highland fling. This was maddening. Why, he wondered, was this affecting him, of all people? He had an wrought iron-cast stomach.

When Crona finally stopped releasing the contents of her stomach, Ragnarok flopped onto the floor, and Crona joined him.

Ragnarok noted the pineapple-sized bulge coming out of Crona's stomach, which seemed to squirm under her dress, and grimaced. All the implications aside, Crona was far too thin for that.

Suddenly Crona started moaning pathetically, and he was broken out of his thoughts before anymore had the chance to appear. 'She looks pathetic,' he thought. 'In fact that's not far off from the truth. If I didn't hold admiration for Crona's recent ability to pull herself together, I would have given up on her after I was removed from her body.'

The mere thought on the operation to remove him from her body was enough to prompt shivers down Ragnarok's rather diminutive spine. It had been a long and arduous procedure in which he had been pumped directly out of Crona's body while red blood was pumped in to replace him. This had left him worried sick over her - Crona had not answered any attempts to wake her up and it was only after he threatened to swallow her soul (though he didn't actually mean that) that she woke up. He couldn't understand why he had gotten so worked up, or even why he'd come as close as he'd ever come to crying, from seeing Crona in danger of dieing. He was free from his obligations to a girl who was weaker and dumber than he was. So why had he chosen to stick around?

And for that matter, why had he not tried to do something about their love child? If he had been an ordinary weapon, and human, he would've showered Crona with affection and love before doing his very best to become a good father. But a) he wasn't human and b) even if he care about her well-being, Ragnarok was a lovelorn, sexless creature. He had no interest in that kind of life. Besides, he was a killer. He took things out of the world, he didn't bring them into it. And Crona wasn't any better than that. She could barely even take care of herself, and she didn't even realise she was pregnant. Not a good start.

"Ragnarok, can we go to bed now?" Her voice snapped him out of his reverie for a minute.

"Of course, you idiot. You don't need me to give you permission," he grumbled.

"Uh, okay," she mumbled as she clambered onto the bunk and lay down flat. Ragnarok silently thanked that cow Maka for doing one thing right by teaching Crona how to sleep properly. He hated to see her suffer.

'_Wait, did I just think that I hate to see her suffer? When did I become such a common softy_?' he growled in his head, but shrugged as he climbed the frame like a climbing wall, since it was a legitimate thought of his after all.

He carefully positioned himself beside Crona on her pillow, trying not to look too affectionate.

Crona turned to him and said, in a nervous voice laced with worry, "Ragnarok, you're not going to leave me, are you?"

Ragnarok turned to her with his expressionless face and calmly replied, "If I wanted leave you, Crona, I'd be gone already. I'll admit it's a temptation difficult to overcome, but I find a way, you know. We've been through a lot together, and I don't honestly think I'd be able to take another meister. Even if it's dull to work for the "Academy".

Crona smiled, blushed and gave him a peck on the forehead. It was all he could do to keep the colour out of his cheeks. "Thanks Ragnarok. You know how much that means to me."

'_Indeed I do, since you ask me this every **single **night_,' Ragnarok thought, though he dared not voice it.

"Ahh, but my time with Loki, now that was some time worth spending! Back when I called myself Lævateinn, back when the Gods feared me, back when..."

Ragnarok trailed off when he realised he had said that out loud. Crona was looking at him with a curious, child-like expression that told him she had heard him.

"Err, I mean, GoodnightCronasleeptightdon'tletthebedbugsbite!" and with that, he pretended to be asleep until her familiar, cute breathing told him that she was.

'_Crona's breathing is cute and familiar to me now? Arrgh_!'

It was all Ragnarok could do not to scream and wake up the whole bloody city. With a huge effort he calmed himself, before reluctantly allowing her breathing to lull him into slumber.

* * *

><p>Black Star looked at the poster. He looked away and blinked. Then he looked back at it.<p>

It read "An antique Genji blade for anyone who can defeat the mysterious vagabonds situated within the vortex outside our village. In total 7776 warriors have failed to complete this challenge."

Black Star grinned at the poster. He snatched it off the wall.

"Yahoo! Another challenge for the amazing Black Star to resolve! I'm gonna defeat these suckers and become a Warrior God!"

"Calm down, kiddo!"

Tsubaki said this after she had uncharacteristically hit him over the head.

"Look, can we at least take a minute to analyse the enemy and formulate a strategy?"

"NO WAAAY!"

With that, he charged off into the vortex, vanishing from sight.

Tsubaki simply smiled to herself, though, and followed him through to the Great Beyond.

* * *

><p>Two figures walked through the jungle.<p>

One was a Death Scythe, the other was a Meister.

One was a man wearing a bear head, the other was a monkey in human clothes.

One was called Tezca Tlipoca, the other was called Enrique.

Suddenly they stopped in front of a mysterious temple.

"Looks like this is the place," the bear head commented.

"_Gau_" nodded the monkey.

"You think we'll find something in there?" asked Tezca.

"_Gaugaugaugau_" Enrique observed.

"Yes! You're a genius!" the weapon exclaimed.

"Gaugaugau gaugau gau" the meister chuckled as they walked into the temple, their laughter ringing out so loud that they didn't hear the stone doors shut behind them.

* * *

><p><strong>They could have told me this would be such a long shot! I'm getting caught up in the planning stages of this story and not to mention all the diversions caused by homework and such. But whatever, over the course of these weeks, I'll be writing vigorously, hopefully writing eight chapters. Also, while the next eight chapters will serve as introductions to the characters and serve as basic templates for their storylines, know that I'll be using the fragmented storytelling style Okhubo uses in his comics from then on. <strong>

**Peace out!**


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